Black cat
by ThatOneGuyQ23
Summary: Salem creates a grimm unlike any other.
1. Black cat

Her creation stared up at her, like a child. Well, technically they were. The boy standing before Salem was wearing all black, a special kind of black that her grimm use. It absorbs all light and helps to blend in. panning her head up to his face, she saw two cat ears and scraggly black hair. "Hello, Lynx."

The boy looked down at himself, as if he had just regained consciousness and was seeing himself for the first time. "H-hello?" He said unsurely, not knowing how he knew to speak or where he was. "W-where am I? Who are you?"

"My name, is Salem." She said with a soft, caring voice. "I created you, my first faunus. This place is home."

Walking with the woman with white features, outlined by red veins and black clothes, he looked outside and noticed creatures with black bodies and white bones poking out from their skin crawling from pools in the ground. They were strangely cute and he felt protective of them, wanting to run to them but resisting while in the presence of the automatic authority that Salem had.

They came to a large room with weapons adorning the walls. "Lynx, you will be spending a lot of time in this place."

* * *

Lynx awoke one morning and heard Salem screaming in anger. There was also a male voice that was obviously scared of her. He jumped out of bed and ran to her office, using shadows to mask his footsteps. He had been taught early on about his abilities, control of shadows and grim. They were once difficult and out of his reach but now they were second nature to him.

"My lady, you have to understand the unprecedented nature of the warrior." The man managed to stutter.

"We have dealt with them before, one well times slash to her eyes would have rendered her useless and Mountain Glenn would have fallen. Now all we have done is force them underground and my plans are destroyed, Vale will not fall." Salem growled. Standing outside the door, Lynx had no idea what they were talking about except that it had to do with mankind.

Salem had been training him to destroy men with ease but had yet to tell him why. He was always left curious when she stalked off into her office to order some pitiful human around. He always wanted to question one when they were walking from her office but he never did, not wanting to disappoint Salem.

She stalked out of her office before Lynx could hide himself and took his collar, dragging him along. "You know your purpose, you know how to do it. Now go and don't disappoint me." They entered a room with a hole in the floor that seemed to extend down forever. She waved her hand over it and red rings began to form and a portal began to take form. Before Lynx could react he was shoved from behind through the portal and it shimmered before disappearing.


	2. Deployment

Lynx awoke in a forest to find that he was surrounded by beowolves. He sat up and wondered what brought on Salem's anger, she was like a mother to him though she had explained otherwise plenty of times. He gets up and spins in a circle, noticing a light in the distance and walks towards it while commanding the grimm to stay in their pack.

As he approaches the light he notices that it is from a forge from as blacksmith's and that a village is only 50 feet away. He knocks on the door of the blacksmith's and puts on his most innocent face, laying his ears flat to his head as the door opens. The man before him is wearing a large grey apron and has his long brown hair tied behind his head.

"H-hello, s-sir." Lynx says, trying to get into the emotions of the human. He was going to destroy him at a later date but he wanted to study him, to learn why his lady Salem despised this creature. "I-I lost my mother in the woods."

"Well, little kitten. Why don't you come on inside, this is the brightest light around she is sure to check here first." Replied the blacksmith, easily manipulated by Lynx's innocent stare.

Walking into the concrete room he felt the forge drying up his face and stared in awe at the arsenal of metallic supplies, forgetting that he was meant to be an innocent little boy. He quickly put his façade back up and turned to look+ at the six foot tall man before him. "If you don't mind son, I need to get back to work. Please stay away from the forge while I'm working, I don't want you to get burned."

Lynx stared up at the walls and made conversation with the man, probing into humanity. He quickly got bored of the conversation and the man became suspicious after half an hour with no mother arriving.

"Hey buddy where about did you lose-." He was suddenly forced into a wall by solidified shadows and all the air was knocked out of him. Lynx walked over and picked up a hunting knife from the wall. "So, Mr Blacksmith, why should I not kill you?" the blacksmith struggled for air as he gasped his response.

"I-I'm just a blacksmith. I forge weapons, I help the village."

"What else?" Lynx growled as he let the man fall to the floor and crouched.

"I fight! I train new huntsmen to defend the village from grimm…" His voice trailed off as his throat was tightened by a force that he couldn't see. Lynx's ears folded back. "What do you mean, _defend_?"

"I kill the-"Lynx plunged his knife into the man's chest using all of his strength. Blood splatted onto his face and he repeated the action again and again. He stumbles outside grief stricken.

 _I train new huntsmen._

Any of these people could be a murderer. _Now I understand what my lady sees._ He storms up to a passer by with knife in hand and thrust it into her back, not caring if people heard her cries. Surely enough a man runs up to him and aims and arrow at him.

Lynx drops the woman and walks towards the man as an arrow is loosed. It diverges from its path and follows behind him. Three more arrows are loosed and the same thing happens. By now they have a small gathering of people hearing the commotion. The arrows slowly move to the archer and circle him. Lynx raises his hand and waits before creating a fist.

The arrows simultaneously enter the man's body and pass through, piercing two people either side of him. Chaos ensues with many running and some staying to fight the small boy. Shadows easily sliced through all of the humans and destroying the village was quick and easy with no buildings even being destroyed. He sat gasping for air at the sudden exercise and shadows swirled around him.

Suddenly familiar red rings appeared all around him and he stood up pointing the knife at one. People clad with weapons and dark clothed poured out of the portals and stopped once noticing the destruction. Once everyone was out the portals disappeared and he was in a circle of warriors. "Who are you?" Lynx said as calmly as possible. A man stepped forward with to children either side of him. A boy and a girl. He smiled maliciously "We, are the tribe of Branwen."


	3. Enrollment

"Branwen, am I supposed to know that name?" Lynx thought out loud

"No, that is the point. If you know who we are then you know how to fight back." Replied the obvious leader. He was wearing a headdress made out of black silk that sat to the side of his head. He was wearing red leather and a flowing black cloak that reminded Lynx of Salem. He had an array of knives tucked away in his belt and a sheath for a katana that housed every imaginable type of dust to coat the blade. "Speaking of fighting, what happened here little kitty." He drew out the katana, the long blade was coated in red dust and it was pointed at Lynx's chest.

"I happened, and I'm not just going to stop here, I suppose that I will have to kill you too."

The man stared in shock before quickly hiding his awe. "You killed all of these people?" He lowered his sword and thought for a moment. "You could be useful. If you can restrain slashing us for a moment and explain how exactly a small faunus such as yourself came to destroy a village by yourself, maybe you could come with us. We kind of do this thing for a living," Said the man, impaling the ground with his katana and leaning on it.

"I do suppose that it would be efficient." Lynx responded after thinking about his

predicament. "Deal."

"Also, we are bandits, we don't just kill. We loot, this is how we gain our supplies."

"Well what are you waiting for? I promise not to kill you yet!"

"Okay you heard the man- wait, yet?" The man laughed a deep throaty laugh. "Loot away!"

Lynx marvelled at the efficiency of these lowlifes as they set upon the discarded colony. They went around in pairs and left no stone unturned. Lynx noticed one person still standing in the centre of the village glaring at him. The boy was one of the leader's children and he tilted his head as he stared at me.

"So, why aren't you joining your father?"

The boy was Lynx's age and was wearing a grey shirt with black trousers, his hair was black with a fringe that was swept to the side. He slowly turned his head to look at his father and sister and grunted. He guessed that that was the boy's response. "I'm just going to." Lynx turned on his heel and walked into the forest behind him. The forest was dark with moon rays piercing through the trees. He walked into a duo of Ursi and commanded the smaller, less bony one to lay down. He relaxed into its soft fur and played with his knife.

He heard a gasp and looked up as the boy grasped a sickle from behind him and went into a defensive stance. "You followed me?"

"I wanted to know what business you had in a grimm infested forest." The boy said, twisting his sickle as the alfa ursa snuck towards him. Lynx stood. "Halt." The Ursa stopped and stared at the faunus before it. It saw its own power inside the boy and took his advice.

"I am Qrow, and you, you have a few seconds to explain yourself." Warned Qrow, tightening his grip on the sickle.

"My semblance is command of shadows." Lynx explained calmly.

"What about the grimm?"

"I just said shadows, you know, what they are made from?"

They walked towards the village to find that the warriors were taking loot back through the portals. The loot was made mostly from various food products, lien and weapons with a few items of value thrown in." Without even acknowledging their presence the bandits stepped through the portals in turn. The boys looked at each other and walked towards the centre portal.


	4. Tests

Once through the portal Lynx saw himself standing in the church hall of a discarded village with supplies lining the pews. The room was crumbling and as Qrow stepped into the room he actually had to dodge some debris that was falling from the collapsed ceiling. The walls had wooden supports in them and maggots in the wood. Several people were filing in and out of different doors leading from the main hall and some were setting up the altar at the head of the room for a buffet.

He suddenly felt himself be dragged from behind outside of the church and a familiar sickle wielder was staring him in the face. The buildings surrounding the church were destroyed and devoid of life, as if this building had been specifically chosen to house the criminals. "What is this about Qrow?"

The boy looked thoughtfully at Lynx before lunging. The sickle appeared from nowhere and was swinging at his neck. The movement was faster than any human could have seen but there was a reason that he was a faunus. He calmly raised his hand and clutched the blade, wrenching it out of the boy's hands and making Qrow stumble as he was expecting his momentum to carry him onward. He quickly corrected himself and swung a leg at Lynx and watched as the boy lifted his leg up and stepped on Qrow's, not stomping, not breaking any bones, but gently stopping his movement. Qrow fell indignantly as the only thing holding him up was swiped from under him by an unforeseen force.

Lynx heard something behind him and tried to stop his ears reacting to the noise and waited before ducking just low enough to dodge the swipe of the girl's sword. He stepped forwards to avoid the jab at his back and looked behind him, feeling sorry for the girl before locking her feet into place and pushing her over with shadows. She narrowly avoided hitting her head on the steps and was holding herself in an awkward position with her feet stuck to the ground and her arms trying desperately to push herself back into an upright position.

Lynx stepped towards his assailant and she stared at him failing to keep the fear off of her face as he walks the few steps that she had managed to push herself up the stairs. His face had no emotion and in the dark of night the shadows seemed to coil around him. He stopped moving and held his hand out. She whimpered as she watched shadows pool into his hand and slowly moved into the air, creating a sword that seemed longer than the faunus himself. He moved the sword behind him and was about to start swinging when bandits surrounded him and aimed.

Qrow watched the sword dissipate into nothingness as he stood behind the cat, his scrapes healing. He had no idea how Lynx was that strong and quite frankly didn't care, he just wanted to know how to defend himself in case he couldn't be trusted. The boy was quiet and cocky, he knew that he couldn't be touched. Not by any man, faunus, or grimm.

The bandits lowered their weapons as the leader stepped through the church door, seeing his twin children not willing to attack the cat. "So Raven, how did he fare?"

The girl on the stairs stood up and looked down. "We didn't land a hit." She whispered after a while. "The entire altercation lasted ten seconds. He has extremely fast reflexes, faster than most faunus and he can, uhh…" She didn't know what to say.

"Shadows." Lynx said. Shadows clung to his legs and slowly climbed up them. He was eventually covered head to toe in darkness and was admiring the stares from all of the lowlifes around him. "As it would seem." Stated the leader. "Ten seconds?"

"Yes sir." Replied Lynx, the shadows coiled as he spoke and seemed to want to lash out at anything near it.

"That could be useful. Just how much I don't know."

On cue the twins rolled out of the way and the bandits fired at the boy in the centre of them. Rounds launched at Lynx until all of the magazines were empty. The shadows lashed out and swallowed all of the bullets, hungry for more. When the last echo had died down the shadows on Lynx's skin were writhing with bullets travelling beneath them. Lynx turned his head to all of the people and sighed. He hoped that this was the last test.

He crouched down and merged all of his armour into one, becoming a ball on the floor. Silence. The bandits stared at the ball, shocked at how strong he was. One bandit stepped forward reaching his hand out to the darkness before him.

Lynx jumped ten feet into the air and stretched his arms and legs out as violently as he could, the bullets exploded from him and rained down on the unsuspecting bandits, he made sure that every bullet went back to its original owner and forced each of them as hard as he could into their bodies. Once every bullet but one was gone from his arsenal he lowered himself to the ground and poured the last bullet into his hand. He walked up to the leader and handed him his bullet, the one that he had fired from his handgun and went back into the circle of wounded. He had made sure to miss all of their vital organs but they were all on the floor, trying to stem the flow of blood. The twins were standing either side of Lynx with Raven standing next to her father and Qrow standing in a circle of bullets.

The leader stepped forward and drew his katana.

"You are a clever boy, you know what we have been doing, final task, you don't have to beat this one, defeat me."


	5. Final Exam

Dodging back onto his hands then back up again he avoided the swipe from the sword. He down to avoid the next swipe then sidestepped to avoid a jab. The katana was imbued with fire dust, and shadows and light/heat don't mix. He spun on his heel after the next jab, his back to the red hot sword, he then tried to grab the hilt and rip it from the man's hand but he was met by a foot to the chest that pushed him twenty feet away.

He stood in the remains of a stone house and realised that this house was on the border of the village and that he was surrounded by dense woodland. He slowly backed into the woods and created himself a cloak of darkness. He watched his opponent search the trees for him. He climbed a tree that was on the tall side and gathered his strength. Pushing the shadows up he flew and moulded his cloak into a suit of armour that absorbed all light. He summoned dual swords into his hands and dived head first at his sword wielding leader. The man raised his sword diagonally and crouched in a defensive stance. Lynx pointed the swords towards him and began to expand his armour.

Suddenly he split into three different parts and the swords continued forward into his defence and the shadows of Lynx landed in a triangle around him and they all summoned swords but they started to flicker as he began to exhaust he spun on his heel and the other two shadows followed his lead, all attacking at the same time, at different levels. Lynx attacked the centre, the clone to his left attacked the top and the clone to his right attacked the bottom, closing all exits. The man twirled his sword in the air and impaled the ground, lighting them al on fire except him.

Lynx flew back with as much force he could muster and left his shadows behind to dissipate. He fell onto the cobbles as the man removed his sword from the ground and walked towards Lynx and put the sword back into the sheath. He spun the outside and drew it out again, covered in a crackling yellow dust that was surrounded by static electricity. Exhausted, the world began to flicker and fade before his eyes.

The Bandit king pointed his sword at Lynx and began to notice that small balls of darkness were falling off of the boy and he was flickering. Suddenly the boy disappeared and balls of darkness took his place and were suspended in the same position that he was in last. Then they fell to the ground and as they touched the stones they vanished from existence.

Lynx awoke to find himself on the floor in a forest. He was covered in dust and the sun was beginning to rise. He felt his power slowly returning but it was halted by the sun's rays poking through the trees. He heard a grunt behind him and a boarbatusk stood behind him. Calling it to him he used one of its tusks to lift himself up. He looked around and saw a thin plume of smoke around four hundred meters away. Still exhausted he commands the boarbatusk to drop him outside the village and lets the gentle movement from its steps lull him to sleep.

In the village everyone was alert for a few minutes after the disappearance of the faunus. People had begun to think that he wasn't going to return because they were expecting another attack from the boy but after the first minute they had lowered their weapons and their guards. After a half hour the sun had begun to peak over the horizon and they began to file back into the church and had dug into the feast that was prepared when the door was forced open and a boy with two cat ears walked through the open double doors and was supporting himself on a large stick.

He walked into the room and around the table. He seemed to require the stick to walk and used his other hand to pull at the air. The pew that he was standing in front of moved back and he climbed over it and took his place at the table next to the closest thing he had as a friend, Qrow. All of the bandits were staring at him as he took a leg of lamb from the table and placed it on his plate. As he took his first bite he noticed the stares of confusion from his peers.

"Ugh, what?" Lynx questioned. "What's wrong? None of you are eating."

"We didn't think you were coming back." The leader just to his left, and at the end of the table stated.

"What do you mean? I was only gone for a few minutes and I don't even know what happened. You exhausted my aura and knocked me unconscious. I awoke in the middle of the forest after you dumped me there."

"Actually that's not true." Explained Qrow while staring at a lone slice of meat on the end of his fork. "You were gone for around three quarters of an hour. And it wasn't father that exhausted your aura, you used your semblance way too much and in a last ditch effort to save yourself you must have unlocked a new ability."

The leg of lamb in his hand dropped onto the table and he stared at nothing in particular. _A new ability? Why didn't Salem tell me? Are there more I don't know about?_

"What are you talking about?"

"After you leapt from the flames you turned into shadows. You disappeared and we waited half an hour before stopping the search. And let me tell you, as the crow flies doesn't work if you don't know where what you are looking for lies."

"I disappeared? That actually explains some things." Lynx stated. "That must have caused aura exhaustion to the point that I was unconscious while it recovered."

The man to his right laughed. "You know, you were a worthy adversary. Do you still wish to join us?"

"Wouldn't change my decision for the world."


	6. Deployment 2

Standing in the centre of the church Lynx was surrounded by bandits and he had his adoptive father on his right.

"So, once the portal is created I have fifteen minutes to pass through and destroy the village. And if I need help then I just destroy this vial?"

"Yes and no, yes destroy the vial, it will release dust that has a very distinct pattern once it is airborne. And no, don't destroy the village. We need to be able to loot it."

"Okay, I'm ready."

Red rings formed in front of the cat, he felt a breeze come through and he stood, calming himself.

"Boy, go through the portal before it is noticed!"

"That is what I am counting on."

"Wait, what do you-?"

Qrow's sickle and Raven's sword suddenly flew into the boy's hands and he jumped through the portal and it disappeared.

Once through the portal, Lynx found himself surrounded by a crowd of people which seemed like it held the entirety of the village. There were three men and one woman in front of him who had armour on, one wielded a crossbow, another a mace, the female had a collection of daggers and a sword, and the last had a large shield that covered his entire body. Lynx landed and twisted the sickle in his right hand, he was trying to figure out the most efficient way to decapitate all of them when the crossbow huntsman spoke up.

"What are you doing here kid? Where are the rest of your thieves?"

"Oh, today it is just me. But don't worry, it will still be a fun fight."

The woman spoke up and twisted her sword so that the blade was pointing behind her. "I doubt that, just go back through the portal and we will let you go without removing any limbs."

"I'm afraid that I lack the ability to do that, the only way that I can go back through is once _you_ are dead." Lynx crouched down and raised his right hand and sickle. The sword was behind him but it was facing forwards.

"Kid, I'm going to give you a count of three, one, two-"

Lynx pushed off of the ground and used the shadows to direct his path directly at the mace wielder. He hooked the sickle around his neck, the chainmail winning against the blade. He brought the sword up to try to stab through his chest when the man brought up his foot to move the path of the blade into a plate of armour. Lynx kicked back into the crossbow that was being raised behind him and managed to dislodge it from their hands. He used the force of the kick to propel himself forwards around the mace wielder, using the sickle as a pivot. He used his foot and kicked away an incoming throwing knife. He threw the mace wielder at the shielded man and parried an incoming swipe from the woman with the sword. He ducked to dodge a bolt from the crossbow and swiped a foot out from beneath the sword woman. She tried to grab onto Lynx to keep herself upright and he just threw her at the shield as well.

Now he only had two more to go as the shield had knocked the other two unconscious. He jumped at the man with the shield feet first and launched himself backwards towards the man with the crossbow. He twisted in the air and jabbed with the sword. They shot a bolt at his face and Lynx brought up his sickle to split the bolt in half. He missed the jab with his sword and got a bow to the face in return. He spun on his heel and tried to hook their unarmoured midsection when he got hit from behind with the shield.

As he was thrown forwards he twisted in the air and watched the shield transform, the top half disconnected from the base and bent around his left arm up to his shoulder and it developed blades by his forearm. The lower half twisted and the bulk of it got pushed up, leaving a thin handle behind it. At the top it bent outward and became a large scythe.

"Now you, you I like." Lynx said. He launched himself at the scythe wielder. They brought up the handle and blocked the strike from Lynx's sickle then spun and backhanded him with his gauntlet. Lynx then tried to swipe at their legs, falling on his face after tripping and allowing a crossbow bolt to enter a weak point in his ankle. He then saw the scythe blade swinging down and he became a cloud of shadows. He flew over to where the portal originally was and watched his opponent's awe.

"Okay, I change my mind, I don't like you."

A building's shadow was lying in front of him and he stepped into it. The shadows began to spiral and a stick formed it raised into his hand and then past until it was taller than him by three inches. The blade extended three feet sideways and had a point on the other end of the stick.

"Woah, how did you do that?" The scythe wielder said, shocked.

Wisps of shadows were clinging to his shoulders and then went around his arms, they slowly started to form a trench coat that ended only two inched off of the ground. A hood slowly began to develop on his coat, shrouding his face in darkness.

"I've been toying with you, I could kill you both with a snap of my fingers. But I didn't. I wanted to see how good you were in combat, that is why I didn't kill your little friends and you repay me by almost slicing my head in two? Now, you have done it."

"You're nothing but talk, kid."

Lynx looked over to the side where the mace wielder was laying. He was pitiful. He had blood streaming from a gash in his forehead and had one of his teeth on the ground in front of him.

"Do you really believe that? Would you like me to prove it?" Lynx questioned. Humans really were stupid. In the face of ultimate power they still fail to bow.

"Yes, please your highness." He said, sarcasm oozing from his words.

"Hmph, if you insist."

The man suddenly had a spurt of blood spray from the back of his head as he fell back to the ground. His tooth passing all the way through his skull and landing in the midst of the crowd.

"Now, time for the rest of your treatment."

Watching from a distance, the bandits were watching the showdown, with Qrow sitting in a tree and with Raven on another branch.

"What is he doing, he can do more than that. He isn't even utilising his semblance." The leader said in a gruff voice. "He's toying with them."

They all watched as Lynx landed after being thrown through the air.

"Qrow, you know what to do."

Qrow flew down to the village and landed on a rooftop, dust flying, as Lynx threw himself at the scythe wielder and he promptly fell onto his face and became a cloud of shadows while dodging the scythe blade.

Qrow quickly transformed back into a person and laid on the roof, a tree blocking Lynx's sight of him yet allowing Qrow to watch over the battlefield.

"Hmph, he dodged that with ease."

Lynx had found the weak point in the scythe and removed the blade and he had disabled the crossbow only two seconds after starting his walk towards the huntsmen. From beneath his coat came a thick smoke of shadows and they dissipated after five feet. His scythe touched the ground with every step and he stopped halfway to the huntsmen. He raised his hand and the smoke from beneath his coat became tendrils of darkness and began to creep towards them. Panicking from being disarmed they tried to stomp out the smoke yet it just regrouped into even more.

"Try if you wish, you will not succeed." Lynx's voice was low and hoarse, it echoed as he spoke. The scythe- well, polearm wielder spun his weapon in the air and brought the end to the ground with enough force to crack it. Flames spewed out from the collision and destroyed all of Lynx's shadows.

The boy screamed in pain and collapsed to the ground.

"You bitch!" shadows snaked towards them at a higher speed as Lynx began to no longer care about style.

"Hey, scythe. Do it again." He waved the stick in front of him and the smoke burst into flames.

Lynx screamed again as though he was physically hurt. He crouched on the ground and breathed in and out heavily.

A shadow floated by his ear and he whispered something to it.

" _Kill._ "

 **Hey guys, I have decided that I can no longer do one every other day for the reasons:**

· **I can't write with a deadline that close**

· **the length of the chapters could be improved**

· **my writing is not as good as it could be**

· **I need time to think about what is going to happen next, I have a storyline planned out in my head but I just need to know how to get from A to B.**

 **I hope you like this chapter as it has incorporated some canon info (AKA Qrow's semblance) and it is longer than the rest**

 **~ThatOneGuyQ23**


	7. New thoughts

The shadow slowly levitated towards the men. Making its presence known. It writhed as if it was forcing itself to move so slowly. It finally stopped around ten feet from the men. It grew downwards and slowly created limbs, adding heavy boots to its feet, a large coat on its back, and topped off the look with a hood.

"What is he doing?"

The shadow looked exactly like Lynx but with no colour. It stood there, face covered by the hood and coat staying still despite the cool breeze. The scythe wielder raised his hand and shot a fireball towards its face. The shadow fizzed slightly as the fire passed through it, and not a grunt was heard from Lynx. It stood there and did nothing. Ten seconds, twenty, one minute, two.

It raised its arm. The shadow itself began to speak in a voice that was impossibly deep and impossibly loud.

"You are pests, consider me the exterminator." Its face transformed into that of a monster. Suddenly Lynx disappeared as the shadow stepped forwards, crossing its arms before its face and splaying them. The shadow gained colour and it looked as though all of the darkness was housing Lynx. All of the shadows were thrown in a large radius around him. As it touched the villagers they dropped, dead before they hit the ground. The two huntsmen along with the swordswoman were all alive and staring at him.

"Wait, what happened? I've been unconscious? How did you-?"

"How many grimm have you killed?"

"What do you mean?"

"It was a simple question. How. Many. Grimm?"

They all looked at each other in confusion before crossbow spoke up. "I don't know for sure but between us, surely hundreds."

"Why?"

"Why what? Why kill the grimm?"

"Why?"

"Because they are evil-"

"No they're NOT!" Lynx swiped his arm at the three of them and where he had swiped was one clean cut. He created daggers upon daggers above his head and they all rained down on the gurgling bodies. He jumped onto the scythe wielder's body and swung his own scythe at it, splitting him into an uncountable number of pieces.

"You, are WRONG!" He resorted to just punching at it, crushing its untouched skull with one punch. Every hit on the remains of one body transferred to the others, even the mace wielder. As he took out his rage he made sure no one was left out, switching bodies every now and again. As he raised his fist high into the air, aiming for the woman's chest, a bird landed on it. Another landed on the woman's sword and he stared into its unblinking red eyes as he broke down crying.

 _Why_ , he sobbed, _why does humanity have to be so evil?_

* * *

Waiting to regain his power and watching the thieves pillage the discarded village, Lynx stalked off into the woods. He walked for tens of minutes before finally coming across a campsite. He sat down on a log surrounding a small pit of ashes and glared at a bird that landed in a tree across from him.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME? YOU FOLLOWED ME DOWN HERE NOW WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

The bird flew down from the tree and landed on the log across from him before promptly turning into Qrow.

"Don't worry, I wasn't sent, and I wasn't followed."

"How can you be sure?"

"It's common sense for them at this point." Qrow replied bluntly. Deciding not to probe further Lynx looked down at his hands and summoned a ball of shadows.

"Qrow…"

"Yes, Lynx?"

"How long do you think it took me to destroy that first village?"

"Ughh… I believed it took around an hour, why?"

"It took me four minutes. Plus another ten to round up all of the people. That tried to escape."

"Fourteen minutes? Wow, that's,"

"Impressive?"

"Destructive."

"I could have done it faster but at that moment I wasn't thinking straight."

"That is seriously strong power, Lynx."

"Ever since I came here, to-to Vale, yeah. Ever since I came to Vale I have had this thing, usually my power regenerates after excessive use in a matter of minutes but I am still trying to regenerate the power I used on my clone during the fight. I feel empty. Like when I came here I disconnected from something and now I am just draining my battery." As he spoke the last sentence he looked to the side where a grimm was sitting and beckoned it to him. The beowolf crept towards him and Lynx held out his hand to stroke it.

The grimm growled and leapt at Lynx, catching him off guard and nicking him with its claws.

"What are you-"

The beowolf launched itself at Lynx again and he instinctively swiped with his arm, causing a dagger of shadows to impale the wolf through the abdomen. The dagger disappeared as he stood in shock of his own actions. But before he could feel remorse for what he had done to it he say something. There was a glow coming from the hole in its side. It attracted him. He stepped towards it, captivated by this glow and crouched by the animal as it whimpered.

"Lynx, I though you said that you were cool with these?"

He put his right hand on its side before raising his left.

"Hey, what are you-"

Lynx put his hand through the skin of the beowolf and blood coating him only egged him on. He pushed through the flesh and came to a halt as he saw the source of the glow. It was a mass in the centre of the chest that was made of pure darkness. He lifted it out of the cavity.

In his hands was a surprisingly warm (for the nature of the grimm) heart. Lynx looked at the object with a look that wouldn't look out of place on the grimm themselves. Without even knowing what he was doing he raised it to his mouth and bit, the warm black blood spilling down the back of his throat. After the first bite he stood up with newfound energy. He looked down at his arms and saw his veins turn black and his skin turn white.

"L-Lynx? What's happening?"

Lynx looked at the darkening sky and felt power surge over him. His veins had a slight tinge if crimson and his eyes were turning from faint grey to red but the changes came to a halt and slowly faded. His skin going from pure white back to its regular pale complexion.

"That, felt good."

* * *

"Did you see what that kid did to those huntsmen?"

"Yeah, unfortunately I was on the loot squad. There was actually more blood on the outside than on the inside of their bodies. It was pretty sickening."

"I heard a report from Raven that he can control the grimm, and what is weirder is that he _knew._ Out of all of the people and places she has scouted out, he was the only one to notice her. Apparently after his tests he went into the wilderness and made sure that she knew about his knowledge of her."

Lynx, after his first two weeks at the camp, noticed that he was feared. This was strange, considering the nature of their lives. He decided that it was due to the very obvious birds that followed him wherever he went, how they didn't think he would notice that the twins could never be seen together, though that may have been due to their hatred of their counterpart.

He was walking through what had become his regular routine, waking in on a flat rooved building, taking care of hygiene, eating and watching others train, then finally going into the woods to practice with his magic. He had noticed that his high from eating the heart was fading and no matter how hard he trained he couldn't keep or regain any power. Even whilst not using his powers he drained his power. Fearing that he would be forced to take another grimm, he tried as hard as he could to ebb the flow of darkness from within him. Though he had noticed one good thing about his lack of power, the sun no longer caused him the irritation that it had previously.

He found himself in the clearing that he used as his training area, trees were sliced down everywhere and some stumps had been torn from the dirt when Lynx had decided to test how much strength he could wield. There was a log lying to one side of the clearing with a small indent in it that was as long as his body and was moulded to his comfort. He decided to lay in it and watched a circle of birds above him, flying in mismatched patterns as he toyed with them, making a few fly into barriers or pulling on a wing.

He heard a bird land on his log and sighed as he closed his eyes.

"Qrow, who struck first?"

The bird cocked its head to one side and a faint pop and a small scramble was heard as Qrow transformed and found comfort on the log.

"Struck what first?"

"Don't be dense. The grimm, everyone is terrified of them yet the grimm are terrified of mankind."

"The grimm are scared if us? That puts a new perspective on things."

"Answer the question." Lynx scolded, in a burst of anger. He held his hand over his face and saw it was trembling before letting it hang limp off the side of the log.

"The grimm, why? This is common knowledge."

"Not for me." Lynx mumbled. "So, humans and the faunus spawned into this world, completely unable to defend themselves. And the grimm, creatures that I have been taught to love, tried to snuff you off of the planet?"

"Yes, that is accepted by everyone on the face of Remnant."

"Someone's got some explaining to do."

 **Sorry for how delayed this was, I had no motivation to do this without a deadline so, I have decided that there will be one chapter per week, to give me time and to motivate me at the same time.**

 **~ThatOneGuyQ23**


End file.
